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J. Bruce Fields wrote: >On Wed, Jul 05, 2006 at 05:12:54PM -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote: > > >>J. Bruce Fields wrote: >> >> >>>Or we could add an entirely separate attribute that's guaranteed to >>>increase whenever the ctime is updated, and that doesn't necessarily >>>have any connection with time--call it a version number or something. >>> >>> >>> >>There are versions in both VMS and the ISO filesystem. I have a sneaking >>suspicion that those of us who ever use them are few and far between. >>The other issue is that unless the field is time, programs like make >>can't really use it, at least without becoming Linux specific. >> >> > >Sure. > > > >>I'm not sure exactly how a "version" value would be used other than >>detecting the fact that the file had been changed in some way. >> >> > >I agree. But "detecting the fact that the file has been changed" is a >really important use! I think the challenge would be to come up with >applications that really depend on timestamps and that use them for >anything *other* than detecting when a file has changed. > > But with timestamps I need remember only one number, the time of my last backup. Skipping over the question of "who's idea of time" inherent in network filesystems. I compare all ctimes with the time of the last backup and do incremental on the newer ones. If we use versioning I have to remember the version for each file! In practice I really question if the benefit justified keeping all that metadata between backups. And if I delete a file and create another by the same name, what is it's version? I'll say it again, I think ms resolution is readily achieved today, even over network files, I think greater resolution or versions are going to be more trouble than they are worth. >(OK, so make is a special case--it cares not only about whether a file >has changed, but also about whether it has changed more recently than >some other file. But I'd think a simple version would useful to any >network filesystem, or more generally to anything that caches a view of >the filesystem either on another machine or in userspace.) > > > >>Feel free to show me, I seem to come up empty on using this value. >> >> > >Betraying my own interests--the NFSv4 protocol (unlike v2 or v3) uses a >specialized "change" attribute to maintain cache consistency instead of >depending on mtime/ctime. So nfsd would be one immediate in-kernel >user. Currently we're using ctime, which causes obvious problems. > >But an improved ctime--one that actually increased whenever the file >changed--would also do the job. > No comment, I would have to see a state table to be sure I saw the races or that there were none. With a single writer and a sinple dirty bit there is no issue, it behaves like an elevator, more or less. With multiple writers I bet changes are written in the order submitted rather than the order done, but multiple writers without locks are a train wreck waiting to happen anyway. -- bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com> CTO TMR Associates, Inc Doing interesting things with small computers since 1979 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ | ||||||||||||
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